After Sandy Hook, Guy Says He Got 50,000 People To Stop Playing Video Games. But One Gamer Refused.

Kotaku - Antwand Pearman is a father. As we spoke on the phone this afternoon, his kids chattered in the background. He kept apologizing, but I told him I didn't mind.

When Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn. last week, Pearman, CEO of GamerFitNation, was understandably affected. "I know I would lose my mind if my child didn't come home," he told me. So he decided to do something about it: he called for all gamers to participate in an Online Shooter Ceasefire on Dec. 21, abstaining from violent games for a single day to show respect for the victims and their families.

I know. What a weird conclusion. Not only are violent video games not the problem. It's not even related. How about the sandwich union not visiting Subway for 24 hours? Huh? No, but of course violence in videogames CAN potentially be harmful, and the people who didn't play have their way of showing respect. Which is good, but I'd much rather just see a moment of respect, rather than what seems to be a diversion. Some idiots are bound to take this as a concession that violent videogames are to blame.

Kotaku's articles are no different than the ones people here write and they get posted all the time. I myself don't visit Kotaku but because I don't like the design of the site. 70% of all the stuff on the front page is the same kind of thing Kotaku writes. So if you're going to down vote Kotaku then you should be fair and start down voting the other sites as well. You can start with the sites that do nothing but Wii U doom and gloom articles. I'll give you a hint, most of the sites have Playstation in the name.

How about we start with Kotaku first and then work our way to the other crap sites. Because at least the others have some actual content, no matter how sensationalist it is. Kotaku is the website that compared an outdoor festival speaker system to Glados, they had a writer "write" how he got "laid" on a sonic bed, and another writer who made a 2 sentence article about that Big Game Hunting Game and how she's gonna "Go hug her dog now".

Video games had nothing to do with the shooting. So the dude who killed all those kids played video games but what about his up bringing or how did society treat him. What happened to this man that made him snap and go on a senseless killing spree. If they can answer those questions and we find out the dude had a great up bringing, was never bullied or alienated by society and seen his life going far well then I'd blame video games and boycott the industry for good.

Yep lets take the blame away from gun laws too and just blame violent video games because we need to blame something because we are afraid to look at the truth.

The answer is psychotropic drugs. Adam Lanza was an autistic kid on meds. I think it's possible that those meds he was taking were psychotropic drugs that gives you hallucinations about killing yourself and makes you have violent rage. Watch this.

How about people actually read the story first instead of going on and on about who reported it. I don't like Kotaku, either, but even a broken clock is right twice in a day.

Not every single discussion has to turn into a fanboy argument. This is WHY we gamers aren't taken seriously in the media, and WHY we keep getting dick sauce for bills in the Senate. Can we actually discuss the story instead of who reported it?

Interesting. They actually both have a point. In a way it's nice to show respect by not gaming, and it shows that gamers care about this stuff just like anyone else but in doing it it could almost be seen as admitting that video games are at fault. Which they aren't.

Since gaming had nothing to do with it, not playing for a day is meaningless. How about this one? In honor of the tragedy, I'm going to refrain from drinking coffee for a whole week. Or I'll stop eating potato chips for a day. Or I'll stop driving my car for a day.

And equating a videogame "ceasefire" with the 1914 xmas truce? Yeah, ok there.

Labeling Adam Lanza a monster rather than his actions monstrous is what leads to the continuation of these mass shootings. People want to demonize everything that he engaged in videogames, autism, etc. They do not want to question society or the real violence in the world so they target movies and video games. That plumber obviously is only a plumber because he saw mario do it. Our kids are obese after playing too much Pac-Man. Everyone takes 30 seconds to think than vocalizes a scripted response because of Mass Effect. Society needs to take responsibility for its own actions rather than blaming art.

I still hate hippy music, i don't blame it for violence, just hate it.

I think we should also start blaming the sun, i mean whenever something this bad happens the sun is usually out, and if its not out then its reflecting off the moon so its still affecting the crazy people.

Comic books. Comics use to be huge in the 50's, but then some guy said it made children more violent, and then the Industry bombed. Then rock music, then rap. Now it seems video games are the go to source.

Very true, and that attack is starting to come back as well. I saw FOX do a story talking about how dark and violent new comics are getting (Mostly about DC's new 52) and some guy goes "not all of them are made for kids, look at the rating" and the Fox person went "Bu bu bu but!"

At the same time books were becoming a target as well (in the 50's) Just goes to show they will literally blame anything. They would probably blame board games or kicking cans if they could.

I'm old enough to remember the Satanist scares of the 1980's, every kid who wigged out was accused of Satanic leanings. There are those guys who spent about 18 years in prison for the "Satanic Murders" of two little kids and were only recently released and allowed a retrial because their original convictions were so badly compromised. If you want to know how nuts it got read "Painted Black" by Carl.A.Raschke,believe it or not this guy is still consulted and quoted on teen violence today.

so having gamers hold off one day from playing a violent video game is going to do what exactly? Respect. It wasn't video games that made this kid go on a shooting spree. It was his own mental problems that made him go into a shooting spree.

Having the guns didn't "make" him do anything, they were just tools he used.

At the moment both the NEA & the Gaming world sounds as retarded as each other by pointing fingers in each others directions.

IMO neither were to blame, I feel the mother was completely at fault for: A.) teaching an autistic child how to use the guns. B.) letting said autistic child have access to the guns. C.) obviously not raising her autistic son properly.

Banning either video games or guns would be retarded. Nothing would be solved from that.

Enough with the blame shifting! The media has already disgusted me enough by trying to make this "terrorist" sound like an innocent angel who did what he did because society made him do it. It's really insulting to those little kids and adults who lost their lives because of this ugly excuse of a human whom the media refuses to address as a terrorist because he wasn't of a certain ethnicity or religion.

Autistic or not, he killed 26 innocent people (20 of which were defenseless children). If hell exists, I hope he rots there for eternity.

The media does such a wonderful job at making Americans seem like selfish a**holes and Muslims as terrorists. As for me, thanks to online gaming, I have friends from all over the world. Want to know the similar trait they all share? They are all exactly the f**king same.

You know because the kids killed by American drones in other countries have less value than American children killed by an American terrorist. Oh sorry I forgot! The term "terrorist" does NOT apply when the act is committed by an American who doesn't match a certain criteria defined by color and religion!

What happened in Newton is just as bad as any act of terrorism anywhere on the globe.

Just for the record, one day after the NC shooting, 10 children were killed by US drones in Afghanistan but sure enough the media didn't give a f*ck and Obama didn't shed a tear (I'm not saying that his crocodile tears after the NC shooting worth much).

This crap is seriously annoying: something bad happens, and America gets blamed. Even if we have nothing to do with it, people ALWAYS blame the US.

This dude was screwed in the head: he is to blame. So is his mother, who taught her mentally unwell son how to shoot.

They are both dead.

Guns are not to blame. Guns, in and of themselves, do nothing. What's needed is a person to pull the trigger. Without that person, a gun just sits there.

Games are not to blame. Games, apparently, cause a temporary increase in aggression, but that hasn't been shown to translate into physical action, as aggression can be something as simple as being irritated more easily. For games to influence a person to take action, something has to be wrong with them to start with. And only CERTAIN somethings. And even then, only certain individuals will respond. I've been clinically depressed since I was a child, and yet no violent movie, game, or show has EVER prompted me to do something violent.

That's because the decision- the actions- lies with me. It would be MY fault if I went on a shooting spree, or stabbed a bunch of people.

No game would have forced me to do it. No gun would have moved my hand.

It's not the American government, as incompetent as they may be at times. It's not our military, as controversial as our actions sometimes are.

I'm not even gonna get into the politics and crap involved in us taking military action in other countries. But I can assure you that people would be even more pissed if we stayed over here and were like, "Whaaat? Dictator committing genocide on his own people and the UN's hands are tied? Damn. Oh, well."

How does abstaining from violent entertainment show respect to the deceased? All it does is ensure that this coward of a killer continues to have an impact on the world, even after death. In these cases, I'm with the FBI guy in the Charlie Brooker video on Youtube....stop giving these psychos publicity. Do not broadcast their name, do not emphasise the number of victims....let's stop giving these unbalanced lunatics a target to aim for and a "hero" to aspire to. I certainly wouldn't allow their actions to affect the country or world as a whole in the manner of affecting what we do for entertainment. Millions upon millions per year enjoy this entertainment with ZERO ill effect and ZERO negative impact on the lives of others....let's keep it that way.

It wasn't meant as a statement about gamings relation to the event, just a show of solidarity for other people. No one was forced into this or needs to do so to show support, it was just a way for people with a common interest to say goodwill to those who have suffered. It was in no way a political statement or anything more than a group get together... like a hand holding circle or a candle light vigle.

Terrible event, but why would I stop playing video games? Death is everywhere, big and small. That's life. I'm not going to stop doing something I like because somebody thinks it's violent or "it's just the right thing to do."

There is really no logic behind this. It would be like... if there were a shark attack, you wouldn't ask Discovery Channel to cancel Shark Week out of respect for the victim. I'm not saying this incident wasn't a tragedy, because it definitely was, but this really shouldn't even be talked about on such a widespread scale anymore. It's just helping to garner attention for the criminal. Unfortunately, the media thrives on tragedy and so we won't be finished hearing about this event for quite some time. "Eye on the TV 'cause tragedy thrills me, whatever flavor it happens to be Like 'killed by the husband,' 'drowned by the ocean,' 'shot by his own son,' 'she used a poison in his tea, then kissed him goodbye,' that's my kind of story It's no fun 'til someone dies" Tool's Vicarious is probably the most depressingly true song of all time. If you've somehow never heard it before, at least look up the rest of the lyrics.

The truth about all this is simple. The killer is dead so everyone is looking for a target to blow steam at and they choose gaming just because the shooter happened to play games. Gaming once again has to be the fking scapegoat because they don't wanna focus on the real problem which is the public distribution of munitions.

people do really bad things and there is nothing we can do about it... what happened happened and it could not have happened any other way!

as a father i am pissed but i would never blame it on games. i am a vivid gamer and a teacher and while i have never played call of duty because it does not appeal to me i have played a number of games that can be labelled violent like ninja gaiden and dead space to name few.

I wonder if these 50,000 people ever fired a gun or even had access to guns. I never fired a gun, let alone seen one up close. I ignore guns. I don't care for them, but in video games it's fun to pretend. I use my gamepad. I assume it's nothing like using a real gun. I figure if I ever have mental issues where I wanna hurt people. I won't use a gun. Because I don't even know how to use a gun. Let alone have a gun. So if a video game can influence me to kill people. How would I go about it? Get my point?

To use guns you already have to be a gun user. Why are kids using guns? Why are some kids who grew up using guns growing up to be nutjobs who do mass-shootings? Because they were already gun users who's outlet for aggression was using a gun. Again I ask, why are we raising kids to use guns? A violent video video game doesn't make you own a gun or teach you how to use a gun.

Even if a video game helped spark your interest in guns. The game didn't make you kill. If killing imaginary people in the virtual world was so damaging to a person's mind that it would make you kill people in the real world. Wouldn't it make a soldier killing people in a war a hundred times more damaging? So where are all the Vets doing mass-shootings? Folks, this a mental health issue and it just so happens that most of the people having these mental breakdowns and doing these mass-shootings were already avid gun users.

Let's ignore the fact the guy had a severe mental illness and blame video games. Let's ignore the fact that the mother tried to get him locked in the crazy bin and that he didn't care for that too much. Another possible motive is that Adam believed she cared about her kindergarden class in Sandy Hook Elementary School more than him. But no let's blame an immensely popular form of entertainment instead of his mental disorder.

He was mentally sick and I have no sympathy for this formerly psychotic bastard due to the fact he willingly killed human beings who haven't even grasped the meaning of life and death. This has nothing to do with video games and I hope you're covered in gasoline when you're burning in hell Adam.

exactly, and by getting 50k people to stop playing video games is like saying it was the video games that killed them children not the shit way society fails mentally ill people, society failed them children, they are the reason they are dead, because they FAILED that mentally ill boy